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18 October 2016

NCAT CREATE'S COUCHFEST COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

This year's Create students played a pivotal part in NCAT's premier annual event, Couchfest, a collaboration of music, visual arts and performing arts with key values centred around diversity and sustainability.

The Create students were given the brief to work collaboratively to repurpose curb-side couches as art installations for the music and arts festival. Each group was given a couch or arm chair and a very short time line. They had to negotiate through inspiration, ideas, processes, obstacles and personal preferences to find a shared and sustainable vision for each couch.

The couches ranged from:

The Silent Reviewer: a movie couch, replete with popcorn, videos and remote

A boat like couch called Imagination where children's stories come to life and wishes come true

The Couch as nest: Branches, twigs, feathers and leaves formed around this snug couch

The Deconstructed Armchair: An old armchair is completely dismantled and rebuilt into a sculpture

The Love Hotel Couch: Based on Japanese Love Hotels, this couch investigates ideas around intimacy in our crowded world

The Desert Armchair: Eroding in the desert winds, this chair and side lamp are slowly disappearing

Initially the student's were unsure about working together, but they threw themselves into the project and discovered the joys of collaborative art installations.

One group decorated a tiny house, built by the college's Building pre-apprentices, as a very old school comfy lounge room! The Tiny House was used as a stage on the day for acoustic acts.

Special mention also goes to one student who went off on a side track to investigate emoticons and why there is never the right one for your mood. She explored as an interactive piece the possibilities of a series of NCAT emoticons.

DIPPING YOUR TOE INTO THE WATER

To the disillusioned out there, change is possible! Every year we accept mature age students into our courses from varied backgrounds, who dream of fulfilling their creative urges but just don't know where to start. For them it is all about putting a toe in the water... building skills and confidence, getting exposed to the rich world of art and or design and avoiding the preclusive costs of higher education.